Pitt Climbed in Issued Patents Ranking
Industry Partnerships Office Re-Launched
Student Startup Fund Created
Small Business Center Received Top National Honor
The University of Pittsburgh Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) is pleased to report that Pitt supported Innovators continued to drive extremely strong results despite the headwinds they were facing the entire year.
“Fiscal 2021 is a year that few of us would be eager to repeat as we endured the pandemic restrictions and welcomed the vaccine rollout that has helped to begin restoring normalcy. Despite those challenges, it was a year of major accomplishments for Pitt innovators on and off campus seeking to make an impact on the world through the growth of their ideas and discoveries,” said Evan Facher, Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Director of the Innovation Institute.
The OIE is composed of four operating units:
Innovation Institute: Intellectual property management; technology licensing and startup formation; commercialization education, mentoring and funding.
Big Idea Center: Student innovation and entrepreneurship
Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships: Industry engagement and economic development
Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence: Regional small business education, consulting and networking
Following is a summary of the key highlights for each unit for Fiscal 2021:
Innovation Institute
The fiscal year began four months into the pandemic with most Pitt labs either closed, severely restricted, or having put existing projects on hold to focus on tackling Covid-19. Nevertheless, Pitt innovators produced another year of impactful innovation, highlighted by 17 startups launched from the university and a record 124 patents issued to Pitt innovators.
The progress in patents issued resulted in Pitt jumping 8 spots in the ranking of worldwide universities granted U.S. utility patents, from #28 in calendar year 2019 to #20 in 2020, according to the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association.
Fiscal 2021 was also the strongest year in the University’s history for revenue from regular patent and licensing activity, reflecting the increasing commercial success of Pitt-developed innovations.
Under the University’s new intellectual property policy, which was updated during the fiscal year, an increased portion of proceeds from new transactions are being shared by the innovators and their departments or institutes, strengthening the cycle of research, discovery and impact.
It was also a foundation-building year for the Pitt innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Importantly, the Chancellor’s Gap Fund was reauthorized during the year. This fund plays an important role in providing up to $75,000 in funding for innovators with promising discoveries to explore the commercial potential of their ideas.
A $25 million gift from the Hillman Foundation announced in February invigorated vision care research and development through the Eye & Ear Foundation, which is pursuing vision restoration breakthroughs under the direction of Jose-Alain Sahel, who came to Pitt in 2016 from Paris’ Sorbonne University to direct the Department of Ophthalmology.
$3 million of the gift was allocated to supporting the LifeX startup accelerator, and $1 million to vaccine research. Previously, both the Hillman and Richard King Mellon Foundations had provided support to LifeX to establish the region’s first wet lab incubator space.
Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships
The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship strengthened its outreach to industry with the hire of Joe Havrilla to lead the restructured Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships. Joe and his team had a successful year in which it forged many exciting new opportunities for Pitt researchers to engage with industry partners to achieve impact for their work. A great example is a new partnership with BridgeBio to accelerate the development of breakthrough therapies for genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers.
New partnerships were also forged with Astellas for the discovery and optimization of clinical candidates for treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration.
Big Idea Center
The Big Idea Center, operating all of its programs virtually, managed to have different innovation teams win prizes in both the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition and the ACC InVenture Prize competitions.
From a foundational perspective it also launched the Big Idea Advantage Fund, an investment fund to support student startups as they work to get their first product to market. The fund will provide Pitt student companies that demonstrate exceptional commitment and whose ideas show commercial potential with critical early investment funding to support them.
The fund is being made possible by donors who have stepped forward to accelerate the growth of student innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt.
Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence
During FY 21, The Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence assisted 1,413 businesses, as federal, state, and local government programs were developed and rolled out to support small businesses through the pandemic.
In September of 2020, the University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center (SBDC) was recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as the national SBDC Excellence and Innovation Award winner of 2020, ranking the Pitt SBDC #1 out of nearly 1,000 SBDCs across the nation.
The IEE delivered its programs virtually with 28 graduating members of its Entrepreneurial Fellows Class certificate program, which provides business training for leaders in companies with over $1 million in revenue, and 22 graduates of the Community Power to Prosper, which provides business training for entrepreneurs starting businesses in distressed and underrepresented neighborhoods.
Also on the training front, the IEE expanded its “Essentials for Success” diverse supplier program in partnership with UPMC to the states of New York and Maryland in addition to Pennsylvania. The program connected nearly 350 businesses to UPMC vendor opportunities across the three states.
Pitt Startups Accelerate on Path to Impact
Finally, it was a year of great progress for previous Pitt startups. Here are a few highlights:
LyGenesis, which develops cell therapies that enable organ regeneration, received FDA clearance to begin a Phase 2a study on the safety, tolerability and efficacy of its cell therapy for patients with end stage liver disease. The company also completed an $11 million convertible debt financing to proceed with the clinical trial.
Peptilogics Inc. raised a $35 million series B financing, and in April, 2021, announced the successful completion fa Phase I clinical trial for its lead compound, PLG0206, a potent anti-infective that has been granted FDA Orphan Drug Designation and Qualified Infectious Disease product designation for its initial focus on the treatment of prosthetic joint infections.
Oncorus Inc., a viral immunotherapy company focused on driving innovation to transform outcomes for cancer patients, commenced a clinical trial in collaboration with Merck (NYSE:MRK) to evaluate the combination of Oncorus’s ONCR-177 with Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), as part of an ongoing Phase 1 study of ONCR-177 in adult patients with advanced and/or refractory cutaneous, subcutaneous or metastatic nodal solid tumors. The company has previously raised more than $150 million to advance its therapies towards the market.
And InMune Bio entered a Phase II clinical trial in advanced melanoma patients who have not responded to other therapies.
“We are excited for Pitt innovators getting back to a more traditional approach to discovery and achieving impact through commercial translation in the new fiscal year,” Facher said. “The support that the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and its constituent units, together with the regional innovation and entrepreneurship system, can provide at every step of the journey from the lab to the market has never been more robust. If you’re ready to explore the commercial potential of your innovation, or if you are a member of industry, and investor, or entrepreneur seeking your next business opportunity, our door is open.”